Directions:
Mix all of the wonton filling ingredients together. Place a teaspoon of filling in the center of each wrapper. Moisten the edges. Fold the ends together to form a triangle. Fold the two sides together. Repeat. Place finished dumplings on a plate and cover with a clean, dry towel. Meanwhile, bring all of the soup ingredients to a boil. Drain out the solids, return to stove. Add the dumplings, the now rehydrated mushrooms and char siu to the broth. Discard the rest of the solids. Cook until the dumplings float and are cooked through, about 5 minutes. Ladle into individual bowls, sprinkle with green onions.

Yield: 2-4 servings

My thoughts:

Matt's been wanting to make homemade wonton soup for a while now, and since I like especially like making homemade versions of takeout favorites it sounded like a good project to me. I picked up a package of frozen wonton wrappers during my most recent trip to H Mart so (for once!) we didn't have to make the wrappers from scratch. That really cut down on the work it took to make the wontons. Now the soup does require a bit of work: making the char siu, making the wontons but none of the work is particularly time consuming and quite a bit of it can be done the day before. I made some wonderful homemade stock the day before, so all I had to do was add some additional flavors to compliment the wontons when it was time to make the soup. It would be even easier if you used store bought broth. The char siu needs to be marinated overnight, so to make the soup Matt just had to cook and slice it. The dumplings came together in a matter of minutes using the premade wrappers. We only needed to make 25-30 dumplings to have enough for a really wonton filled soup. All in all, it didn't take much more than half an hour to make delicious homemade wonton soup. We had a large bowl of it as a meal (with lots of pork and wontons) but it would also make a great appetizer soup.

We've been making wonton soup for years at at home but I can't seem to get the dumplings to stay closed. It never fails that a few open up while cooking and fall apart. I put a little filling in the middle, moisten all four edges with fingertips dipped in water and close them up pretty much the same way you do. Any ideas?

Where have you found shaoxing in the Baltimore area? i keep looking, but haven't yet found it. Of course, I wouldn't know what the bottle looks like either. But knowing a location would be a big help. Otherwise, the closest thing I have is Mirin and Sake...

Maggi: Shaoxing is pretty easy to find, any Asian grocery would have it (H Mart has about a dozen brands of it, all clearly labeled near oils and vinegars) and I've even seen it in the "International" section of Safeway and Superfresh.

oh you totally shamed... I ... ahem... mean inspired me to finally get cracking on a char siu recipe I have from the Yank Sing cookbook (a famous dim sum joint here in San Francisco). If the only reason I make the char siu is to put in that soup... I will have done a very good thing indeed!

Food Dude: Good tip! I used to do that but then sometimes the dumplings would have a slight "eggy" flavor to them. But if the only brand of wonton available kept falling apart on me, I'd totally go back to the egg wash.

This looks terrific and not so daunting to make. I live in a family full of Chinese fod addicts (one of our favorites is the Cook's Illustrated recipe for Hot and Sour soup that is my daughter's specialty)Can't wait to give this a try!